Bottas prioritized finishing first over extra point for fastest lap

Valtteri Bottas has revealed that he and his team didn't want to make a 'silly mistake' by pitting for fresh tyres in the final laps of the Australian Grand Prix. Instead, the Mercedes driver stayed out on track but was still able to clock the fastest lap of the race on older tyres. Bottas had a great race and will hope to continue to win in Bahrain. 

Fans heard on the team radio that Bottas was desperate to score 26 points at the end of the race. They considered pitting for a fresh set of tyres but decided that there were too many risks and that it would be safer to stay out.  

"Obviously getting the big amount of points from the result itself is a much bigger priority and second priority the fastest lap," said Bottas to RaceFans. 

"But once the gap to behind was decent there was enough margin to speak about that and make a plan for that. I asked about possibly a pit stop. It’s something we actually spoke before the race that at the first race of the season you don’t want to do a silly mistake, we want to be maybe slightly on the conservative side in terms of operations. Obviously still racing hard and being the best we can but we need to make sure we do get the big points."

"So that’s why we didn’t stop in the end because stopping again it’s always one more risk whether it’s at the same time there’s a Safety Car or whether there’s an issue with the pit stop or something so we just decided in the last few laps even though I was in traffic I was trying to find a bit of a gap, pulling back some cars behind, to some other engine modes and went for a quick lap. I’m glad I got it, it’s one point more." 

There was a lot of extra excitement at the end of the race with a few drivers all trying to get the fastest lap. It was interesting to see that a number of drivers were desperate to get that extra point.